Latin American ministers discuss ways to end hunger

Latin American ministers discuss ways to end hunger

I’ve got a novel idea — - how about ending the corruption and bribery that fuels all Latin countries and giving the monies TO THE PEOPLE WHO NEED IT!!!

Aren’t these the same people who got flu shots when the rest of us had to wait?
:mad:
The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It
July 16, 2010 - While Goldman Sachs agreed to pay $550 million to resolve a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC, Goldman has not been held accountable for many of its other questionable investment practices. A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008 when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. We speak to Harper’s contributing editor Frederick Kaufman.

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AMY GOODMAN: We continue with Goldman Sachs.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Well, while Goldman Sachs agreed Thursday to pay $550 million to resolve a civil fraud lawsuit filed by the SEC, Goldman has not been held accountable for many of its other questionable investment practices. A new article in Harper’s Magazine examines the role Goldman played in the food crisis of 2008, when the ranks of the world’s hungry increased by 250 million. The article is titled “The Food Bubble: How Wall Street Starved Millions and Got Away With It."

AMY GOODMAN: The author of the article, Frederick Kaufman, joins us now. He’s a contributing editor at Harper’s Magazine.

Well, explain. We’re talking about Goldman Sachs today, this—they call it a landmark settlement, but they made more after-hours in trading last night than they will have to pay. So let’s look at Goldman Sachs and its record overall.

FREDERICK KAUFMAN: Yeah, this is really—it’s really outrageous. And on a certain level, this reform bill is really a sham, because it does not cover, in any way, shape or form, what Goldman Sachs—and really, let’s be honest here, it wasn’t just Goldman; it was Goldman, and it was Bear, and it was AIG, and it was Lehman, it was Deutsche, it was all across the board, JPMorgan Chase—what these banks were able to do in commodity markets, really which reached its peak from 2005 to 2008, in what is now known as the food bubble. And as Juan points out, this is unconscionable what happened, in the sense that their speculation and their restructuring of these commodity markets pushed 250 million new people into food insecurity and starving, and brought the world total up to over a billion people. This is the most abysmal total in the history of the world.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Now, what were these commodities markets like before the Wall Street firms got involved? And you have a haunting picture, especially of the Minneapolis Exchange, what it was before, what it was like. Could you talk about how things operated and then what Goldman Sachs did precisely?

FREDERICK KAUFMAN: The wheat markets, in particular, in this country are the outcome of a process of development of over 150 years. And that is why, from about 1903 to 2003, the real price of wheat in this country has gone down. And this was one of the great reasons for America’s great twentieth century, the fact that we had cheap food, we had cheap bread. And Goldman, in 1991, came up with a new idea and a new product, which, as I said before, completely restructured this market and completely threw it out of whack.

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Is famine comin'?...
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Is the Next Global Food Crisis Now in the Making?
(July 17,`10) — Recent weeks have produced a series of grim and related headlines: Russia has declared a state of emergency because of drought in 12 regions, while in major wheat exporter Ukraine, severe flooding may depress crop yields. Dry conditions threaten Vietnamese rice production. The USDA has projected a disappointingly low Midwest harvest, and China has raised questions on the demand side by doubling its imports from Canada.

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Fortunately, this run of unfavorable farming news follows strong harvests that for now should keep grain prices in check, according to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. But to see the effects of a bad year for food — and what the world could be in for if the present trend persists — one only has to look to 2008. Two years ago, a confluence of environmental causes compounded by rising fuel costs and a global credit crunch caused food prices to skyrocket an average of 43 percent worldwide, leading to starvation and riots from Mexico to Bangladesh. Some are worried that was just a warning.

In a new book, “Empires of Food," journalist Andrew Rimas and Leeds University agricultural researcher Evan Fraser examine civilizations from Mesopotamia to Rome to Great Britain. They argue that every empire was made possible by agriculture, and that when those agricultural systems failed, the empires they supported failed with them. Fraser and Rimas worry that the food system in place today is built around nitrogen-based fertilizers that require petroleum to create, as well as good weather that’s graced the world since the dust bowl. If fuel prices go up again, or if the weather gets worse, they say, we could see our food empire unravel as well.

“Even leaving climate change aside, we know that we have enjoyed good weather relative to the historic average," Fraser told AOL News. “To a certain extent it’s cyclical, and that would lead us to expect crummy growing seasons in the decades ahead." Those who share Fraser and Rimas' worries over the millions of expanding appetites being produced by a developing world are offering a modern version of Thomas Malthus' 1798 argument that population growth will inexorably outstrip agricultural production. Malthus' predictions were attacked almost as soon as they were written, but despite that criticism, his theories continued to find supporters and influence public policy throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. Since World War II, developments in chemical agriculture have brought more nourishment out of the ground than Malthus could ever imagined. Still, his ideas won’t seem to go away.

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You can bet the fat cats are eatin' high off the hog tho'...
:mad:
Goldman Sachs Profit Tops Estimates
07/20/10 - Goldman Sachs(GS) said second-quarter earnings, excluding items, were $2.75 a share as net revenue fell to $8.84 billion from $13.7 billion a year earlier.

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The average estimate of analysts polled by Thomson Reuters was for a profit of $2 per share on revenue of roughly $9 billion for the three months ended in June.

Including the impact of $600 million related to the U.K. bank payroll tax and the $550 million related to a settlement with Securities and Exchange Commission, second-quarter net earnings were $613 million, or 78 cents a share.

Last Thursday, Goldman agreed to pay $550 million to settle civil fraud charges brought against it by the SEC. The charges, which were handed down in mid-April, alleged the company failed to properly disclose that hedge fund Paulson & Co. participated in selecting subprime mortgage securities for a synthetic CDO that Goldman was marketing and Paulson was shorting.

Prior to the SEC charges, Goldman shares were trading above $180. The stock closed Monday at $145.68, down 49 cents for the session. Year to date, the stock is off nearly 14%.

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